Learning-induced errors in the written English texts of hearing-impaired learners in primary school

Abstract

This paper sought to identify and describe the learning-induced errors in the written English of hearing-impaired learners in primary schools. The paper also establishes if there are significant differences between the learning-induced errors made by the hearing impaired pupils (HI) and those made by the hearing pupils (HP) in their written English texts. The study was based on data collected from the written texts of 30 hearing-impaired (HI) pupils and 30 hearing pupils in standard six, seven and eight. The hearing pupils in this study formed the comparison group. Thirty HI pupils and 30 hearing pupils were sampled from Ngala Special School and St Paul's Primary School, respectively. In both schools, stratified random sampling was used. The study then employed simple random sampling to select ten pupils per class in each school with equal gender representation. The researcher used a free composition, a picture story and a cloze passage for data elicitation. Corder’s Error Analysis theory and Selinker’s Interlanguage theory were used to guide the study. From the data analysed in this study, it is evident that both HI and HP make learning-induced errors. These errors, however, differ in quality and quantity. The HI made more Learning-induced errors than their hearing counterparts did. This implied that the HI group had not yet acquired grammatical and lexical competence. The findings of this study will not only add more knowledge to studies done in applied linguistics but will also be of pedagogical value to educationists, teachers and the Ministry of Education in general.